Heading toward the exit, we were overwhelmed by the jet-like sound of two rockets being launched from somewhere near the school. Hamas, or some or militant group, clearly is hoping the Israelis won’t strike at the launchers, which are kept underground until the moment of firing, because they’re close to the school and so many refugees.

As the Hamas-made missiles screamed off into the sky, leaving a white vapour trail, the kids all cheered.

2. A five-hour humanitarian ceasefire came and went. Meanwhile, Israel and Hamas deny reports (most notably BBC and Reuters) that a cease-fire will begin tomorrow.

3. The IDF foiled a Hamas tunnel attack. A group of13 terrorists emerged from a tunnel 250 meters inside Israel, near Kibbutz Sufa, where they were quickly spotted and attacked. The IDF posted footage online.

He said the military believed at least one militant was killed in the strike and that the remaining fighters appeared to have returned to Gaza through the tunnel.

Israel and the Palestinians

• Yesterday, four Palestinian kids playing on the Gaza beach were killed by an Israeli shell. The incident happened near the Al Deira Hotel, where a lot of foreign reporters are staying. Correspondents like Ayman Mohyeldin of NBC News and The Guardian‘s Peter Beaumont jumped into action. Two snippets of coverage made my antennae twitch. The first is by Washington Post reporter William Booth:

It is not unusual for militants to launch rockets from sites near my hotel.

In a letter to Pierre Krähenbühl, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, Prosor said, “Gunness, yet again abused his position by calling on reporters to interview Dr. Mads Gilbert, an outspoken proponent of terrorist attacks against civilians. In September 2001, Dr. Gilbert explicitly supported the ‘moral right’ of Al-Qaeda to perpetrate the 9/11 terrorist attacks against thousands of American civilians.”

In the letter, seen by The Algemeiner, Prosor included the text of a recent Twitter post from Gunness encouraging reporters to speak to Gilbert: “Great interviewee @ Shifa Hosp Gaza right now Prof Mads Gilbert +4790878740 call him 4 fatality & cas figs and atoms RT.” The message has since been deleted.

“Rather than denouncing Hamas’s targeting of innocent civilians, Mr. Gunness is shamelessly promoting an individual who shares Hamas’s morally reprehensible convictions,” Prosor said in his letter.

• While visiting Ashkelon, Norway’s foreign minister, Borg Brende, was forced to take shelter during a rocket attack. Brende was having lunch with counterpart Avigdor Lieberman. Nobody was hurt. More at The Local.

• Jews continued to bear the unfortunate brunt of anti-war demonstrations in London. And police banned a Palestinian rally in Paris.

Commentary/Analysis

• It’s insulting for Nicholas Kristof to say that responding to Palestinian rockets is only within the purview of Israeli “hardliners.” Every Zionist party in the Knesset would have done the same thing.

• Israeli diplomats continued their media blitz. Consul general Ido Aharoni weighed in at Newsmax and Bloomberg News. Ambassador Arthur Lenk discussed the crisis with the Johannesburg Star. Ambassador Ron Dermer took questions on Twitter at #AskDermer. And Mark Regev handled himself quite well on Channel 4 against Jon Snow’s aggressive questions.

Mmm, I wonder what Madnay or is it Magnay? Well you know who will have to say about that. How about BBC and CNN? Evil scum!!! Is Yani Haigh bored by his own rubbish? Be honest and face the truth. It will set you free.

Green parties around the world are full of people that read books and who have higher than normal levels of university education. We do not need the fools of the Zionist hasbara in our parties. You have infested the major political groups you can stay out of the Greens.

Found BY UNRWA and removed. It is entirely normal for Israeli fascists to bomb schools in Gaza they don’t need to be places where weapons are stored. They don’t need to be centres of Islamic education. THEY HAVE BEEN THE AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL. $1.4 million worth of school build by the international community and people in Israel to ensure there were opportunities for exceptional education in Gaza. Destroy as part of a grand plan to drive the people of Gaza into the stone age while testing weapons for marketing purposes for Israeli arms manufacturers.

Just a thought on the four kids who were killed…..if they weren’t active participants for Hamas (yes, they are even younger when they get involved) what on earth were they doing “playing” on the beach during a time where its reported by the media, that Gaza is being bombarded by rockets from Israel.

“Applying the apartheid label is incorrect—and is also confusing because it obscures the tyranny which is in force.” From the link posted to Benjamin Pogrun’s article above: are we so desperate to dispel charges of apartheid that we need support from folks like these? The paradigm of moral equivalency and irremediable hatred on “both sides” which underlies the Pogrun’s essay is no less damaging than the apartheid charge.